The Changing Face of Twitter

 Growing Consensus

A recent article from Politico has discussed scrutiny of the platform X, formerly known as Twitter by the President Biden Campaign asserting that the platform has become an "increasingly hostile space."

 The Biden administration's concerns are not necessarily wrong. Since the platform was purchased by new owner, Elon Musk, many of his recent changes to the site have been questioned and criticized. For example, he has changed the verification systems now providing verification privileges only to those who pay for it monthly. By paying, verified users' activity gets prioritized over others, making it faster and easier for people to see their content. One particular critique of this change is that it makes it much easier for parody and imitation accounts to spread misinformation. 

Although the Biden campaign has its concerns about the platform they have decided it is still "too valuable to leave behind." X has become a major source of political news for people and it is a fast and easy way to spread information. 

"Some also fear that leaving X could create a vacuum of misinformation, disinformation, and bad news that would go unchecked"

Influence of Musk on X Culture

Elon Musk's takeover of X raised many eyebrows and created speculation about the platform's future performance. Musk's vision for "free speech", and a less moderated platform gained the interest of many. 

From Pew Research Center we see some new statistics from that platform since Musk has owned it. They share some interesting facts such as "Following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, most highly active users continued to use the platform but posted less frequently, on average.." 

An additional interesting statistic is that "Republican users have become much less likely to say the site is mostly bad for democracy (60% in 2021 vs. 21% now). In turn, the share of Republican users who say the platform is mostly good for American democracy increased from 17% in 2021 to 43% in 2023."

In other words, Republicans went from 60% believing the platform is bad for democracy to 43% believing that it is good. These changes to the platform have seemed to sit well with conservatives.

Concerns and Important Takeaways

Although we all have our own opinions of the Biden campaign, this message from them about the platform still carries important information. Many of us rely on social media for news and politics, however, as media platforms change we need to be conscious of misinformation. Always practice methods like fact-checking and seeking credible sources.  X has proven statistics favoring conservative views after the new ownership by Musk. This does not mean all information on the site is now unreliable, but it is something to consider when reading news on the platform. 

Lastly, it is important to recognize how the Biden campaign acknowledges the influence and importance of social media platforms like X. Although it is changing away from their favor in particular it is still a major connection between officials and constituents. Social media is a great way to follow and connect to politicians and officials that you are interested in as long as you use the platform responsibly and logically.